


sail on, silver girl, sail on by

by betony



Category: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Polly is the only one she’ll let near her after Hans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sail on, silver girl, sail on by

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katharhino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katharhino/gifts).



> From the DWJ Comment Ficathon, for the prompt _Fire and Hemlock, Fiona, bridge over troubled waters_. Warning for canonically overemotional fifteen-year-olds.

Polly is the only one she’ll let near her after Hans. Actually, if Fiona is honest with herself—and she must be, now that she’s gone and had her heart _torn out_ at the hands of Hans the Unbearably Cruel—Polly is the only one who even wants to come near her. 

Mum and Dad are both too appalled by what Fiona’s done; they come into her room, gawk at her as though they can hardly believe she’s still there (and she’s not meant to be, she’s meant to be living happily ever after with the love of her life!), and then retreating to ring up Hans in Germany to _thank_ him, of all things, for sending her to live out the rest of her days away from him. 

The other girls in her class haven’t shown up, thank heavens, because all they seem capable of doing at school is whispering behind their hands in class about how Fiona Perks ran away and got rejected, isn’t that just too bad? She wants desperately to pull out their hair, to claw at their eyes, to demand if they’ve ever come close to loving anyone the way she has, but instead she settles for edging her seat closer to Polly and asking if she can copy the notes she missed while she was away. 

Polly doesn’t gawk. Polly doesn’t whisper, and Polly certainly doesn’t laugh when Fiona curls up into an angry ball and begins to sob. Instead Polly gives her this funny crinkly-eyed look, like she understands what it is to walk around with a heart that’s too worn out even to ache, pats her gently on the back, and doesn’t say a thing. Fiona weeps, and roars, and Polly only listens in silence. 

Fiona wonders, once, how Polly can be so marvelous about the whole thing, and then she remembers grand good-looking Thomas Lynn who stared at Polly as though she really were made of silver and gold; grand good-looking Thomas Lynn who Polly never mentions any more. But surely he hadn’t broken Polly’s heart the way Hans had hers. No one could dare break Polly’s heart, Polly of the shining pale curls who turns cartwheels and heads with equal ease. Fiona feels her throat stick with envy, and she’s not even sure for whom. 

She forces herself to concentrate on the matter at hand. 

Polly is here for her, when no one else is. She only hopes one day she’ll be able to repay the favor, one way or another.


End file.
